The story The Princess and the Pizza, by Mary Jane Auch, talks about a princess who needed a job. Princess Paulina used to be princess until her father gave up his role as king in order to do wood-carving. Now she needed a job to earn money. One day, Queen Zelda of Blom came to town to find a true princess that would marry her son, Prince Drupert. Paulina wanted to marry him and become a princess again, but she had to compete in a competition with 11 other princesses. Ultimately, Paulina won by creating the dish known as pizza, obliterating her competitors. However, she didn’t marry Drupert. Instead, she opened a pizza parlor and became successful and famous because of her pizza. This story is funny and simple, yet it refers to many traditional fairy tales, and its themes are plentiful and undeniably important. Here are the main three themes of the story.
One’s fame and power needs to be earned by oneself, not depended upon others. Almost everyone wants to be famous and powerful, yet some do it themselves, and some depend on others. If one wants to be truly great, one cannot rely on others. Depending on others for fame and power might work, but it won’t genuinely be oneself who is great, but the person one is relying on. In the story, Princess Paulina wanted to marry Prince Drupert because she wanted to be rich, famous, and a princess once more. She wanted to use Prince Drupert’s power to make herself greater, but in the end, she opened her own pizza parlor and became famous and important on her own. Paulina knew ultimately that she couldn’t depend on Drupert to make her famous forever, so she decided to make herself famous using her own skills. To be legitimately great, one has to be self-recognizing and depend only on oneself.
Creating something new has more potential than something old and common. Something might be more traditional and trustworthy if it was old and common, but old things do not really show a person’s potential or worth, as many people have done it before, so someone doing it again isn’t a surprise. Creating something new, however, takes skill, intelligence, and imaginativeness to make. This will show people that one is capable of doing things no one has done before. In the story, Paulina and her other competitors were asked to make a meal for their last challenge. While Paulina’s rivals all made traditional dishes that were sure to be tasty, Paulina invented pizza, which was better than her competitors’ dishes, earning her the win. Paulina proved that she could not only create something tastier than her rivals’ dishes, she also had the skill to actually do something new. One’s worth is shown not by making old things, but by creating new ones.
No matter how difficult a task may be, never stop trying. There are numerous challenges and difficulties when going through life, and some of these challenges might even seem impossible. One might be tempted to give up because of the sheer difficulty. Yet it is important to keep going no matter how hard it seems, because in the end, even if one fails, one will still learn from one’s mistakes and attempts and become a better person in general. In the story, Paulina had to make a dish using bad materials, no cookware, limited time, and no second tries. However, she didn’t give up, and ultimately, she created the pizza, winning the competition. Even though Paulina was tempted to resign, she never did. Instead, she tried hard and made everything work out fantastically. Even if one fails, trying is always, always beneficial.
In conclusion, The Princess and the Pizza is a short story full of humor and twists. And as with many short stories, the simplicity of the plot doesn’t mean the lack of themes and morals. In fact, this story managed to pack a bunch of themes into the plot, refer to numerous fairy tales such as “The Princess and the Pea”, “Rapunzel”, “Cinderella”, and “Snow White”, and make it funny at the same time while still keeping the story itself very simple. The three main themes I learned are: One’s fame and power needs to be earned by oneself, not depended upon others, creating something new has more potential than something old and common, and no matter how difficult a task may be, never stop trying. The Princess and the Pizza is truly a fascinating work of literature full of fairy tale references, humor, and themes. I hope you can also enjoy it and learn from it as well.
Comments